EDMONTON — The massively popular Lululemon yoga retail chain is recalling some of its reusable shopping bags, days after it quietly alerted staff that some of the bags may contain lead.

An internal conference call to store managers last week instructed them to have staff members return to the store their own merchandise bags emblazoned on one side with large pictures of elite athletes, since the material may contain an unknown amount of lead, an employee at one of the Edmonton outlets said.

Hours after the Edmonton Journal contacted Lululemon's headquarters in Vancouver, the store expressed its concerns publicly and invited customers to return the bags and receive a replacement.

The bags, which come in various sizes, have the recognizable red-and-white "manifesto" messages on one side — inspiring people to "Do one thing a day that scares you," or "Drink fresh water and as much water as you can" — and large photos of various athletes on the other side, such as track-and-field Paralympian Andrea Holmes and skeleton medallist Melissa Hollingsworth, said the anonymous employee.

These versions of the bags featuring athletes' photos — which have been in circulation since the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in February — are the only ones potentially affected by lead traces.

"All available research indicates these bags comply with all applicable health and safety regulations and are safe for our guests' use," said Lululemon CEO Christine Day in a news release. She said the bags were obtained from Lululemon's newest supplier.

"We choose our partners carefully and the manufacturer of the shoppers is known for its green practices, and is co-operating fully with our review," Day said in the statement. "While we conduct that review, we believe that from a long-term environmental perspective it is better to stop distributing these bags. Our guests will be provided with shoppers from other manufacturers that do not raise potential environmental concerns."

Hours before in an e-mail to the Journal, Lululemon spokeswoman Alecia Pulman said no Canada-wide recall of the bags was being planned.

"Lululemon has no information that the reusable bags present any health or safety concerns to its guests," Pulman wrote. "Any information or rumours that you received contrary to these facts is incorrect and was not approved by Lululemon."

People who purchase yoga pants, hoodies or headbands from the more than 100 Lululemon stores in Canada, the U.S. and Australia often save such bags to carry their lunches to work.

The retail store prides itself on fostering healthy, active, fun lifestyles and advocates for "socially responsible business decisions and encourage our employees to make responsible lifestyle commitments that positively affect our local and global communities."

At the end of September, Lululemon stocks were trading for $44.72 on the Nasdaq. That rose to $73.17 by the end of the Dec. 20 trading day.

"We are committed to manufacturing our products in good conscience and in turn are committed to improve the communities where our factories operate," reads an information document from the Lululemon website. The first clothing factory was built in B.C. and manufacturing partnerships have since developed in Canada, the United States, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Peru, Israel, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. It's unclear if the merchandise bags are made in the same factories as the yoga wear.

Robert Fisher, a University of Alberta marketing professor at the Alberta School of Business, said he's most troubled that staff were notified to return the bags days before members of the public, who may use the bags just as regularly. He said the magnitude of the problem depends on how many such bags are in circulation and how much lead may be in them. That information isn't available.

"They obviously have a primary responsibility to protect the public and that has to come before anything else, so if they have any sort of reasonable expectation that this is harmful or could be harmful, their responsibility is to let us know and to remove the risk in whatever way is possible," Fisher said.

"If on the other hand this is some sort of thing likely to be a minor issue, likely to be more a public-relations issue rather than a safety kind of issue, then they're proceeding cautiously because they also have a responsibility to their customers not to panic them and to their shareholders not to create this huge tempest in a teapot."

The Florida Tampa Tribune sparked calls for a federal investigation earlier this year after the newspaper tested similar reusable bags, some of which had lead levels that exceeded U.S. limits for paint. The more elaborate the pictures on the bag, the higher level of toxicity, the newspaper discovered.

Some bags contained 117 parts per million of lead, while others came in at 194. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission allows children's toys to have 300 parts per million of lead in them, although the standard is being lowered to 100 in 2011. Any paint on American-sold products is supposed to have a maximum of 90 parts per million of lead.

While it's difficult to extract the lead from the bags, the newspaper said the paint can chip off when the bag begins to break down.

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